Excuse me, Mr. Paine

I think you've forgotten something.

There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. - Thomas Paine in "From the Rights of Man"

Mr. Paine,
How very short sighted of you not to consider the actions of our forbears and our actions as important for other generations. Not only do the decisions of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents affect us, but their legacy is something to build on and move beyond. It is ridiculous to believe that our parents do not influence our lives. Our goals, our prejudices, our virtues were molded and shaped by our parents. Either in the positive or the negative. And not only do those who come before us change our lives, but the decisions we make will affect our posterity for generations to come. Our good, bad, and indifferent choices will make the world that our children live in. They will live will our debt, our freedoms, our shortcomings, our victories, our laws, and our faith.

We have a duty to the generations before us to build on what they have started. To improve it, and move beyond them. We have a duty to leave the world with a vision for our children. God made us covenantal beings. Each generation is not autonomous; we must live up to the goals of the past and to the hopes of the future.